175 Years of Quaritch
When Quaritch turned 150 in 1997, The Book Collector published a 212-page special issue, guest edited by Richard Linenthal, which came out as an extra issue between the Autumn and Winter issue… those were the days when postage and printing costs allowed for such celebrations.
Last month Quaritch celebrated its 175th anniversary in style with some events held in its now home at 36 Bedford Row - Quaritch called and the book trade attended in droves with a reunion of many Quaritch specialists from years gone by and a magnificent cake featuring the great Bernard Quaritch himself.
Born in 1819 in the small town of Worbis in Thuringia not far from Göttingen in Germany. He started his career working for booksellers in Nordhausen and Berlin, but at the age of 23 he left for London. He didn't know anyone in the city, but was armed with a letter of introduction to Henry Bohn (1796-1884), who at the time was London's leading book dealer. Quaritch's persistence impressed Bohn and he took the young man in.
Bohn was the son of an immigrant German bookbinder and he followed his father into the business and later set up his own business, which flourished and in 1845 he began to publish a series of books under the title of the "Standard Library".
Bernard Quaritch later recalled saying to his employer "Mr Bohn, you are the first bookseller in England, I mean to become the first bookseller in Europe". Bohn's answer is not recorded, but Mrs Bohn, already impressed by Quaritch's diligence, replied "I believe you will". Although he set up on his own just off Leicester Square with only modest capital in October 1847, he issued his first catalogue in the same month - the first of a series that has now reached 1450 with the 175th anniversary issue.
Quaritch had soon assembled an impressive clientele. Among them were Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte (Napoleon's nephew), the Prime Ministers and political opponents William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli and above all, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, owner of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana. The designer and author William Morris was another important client as was Edward FitzGerald, who frequented the shop from the first and was to become a good friend with Quaritch publishing FitzGerald's translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in 1859.
Quaritch could be found at every major sale of the late 19th Century in the UK and US, including the Beckford sales in 1882/3 (his purchases accounted for more than half the totals raised) and the Syston Park sale in 1884, where he bought a Gutenberg 42-line Bible for £3,900 (at that time the highest price paid for a printed book) before then breaking his own record in the same auction by paying £4,950 for the 1459 Mainz Psalter.
His catalogues also expanded with his growing business and by 1880 the catalogue had 2166 pages containing descriptions of 28,000 items. His efforts culminated in the 17 volumes of the General Catalogue (1887-97), which the bibliographer Seymour De Ricci has described as "the greatest bibliographical monument ever produced around the stock of a second-hand bookseller".
In 50 years, Bernard Quaritch had built up the most extensive enterprise in antiquarian books in the world. His interests within the field were wide: natural history, fine arts, periodicals, oriental learning, travels and archaeology came within his span; but he was known above all as a dealer in incunabula, fine manuscripts, Bibles, liturgies, early English literature, Shakespeareana, cartography, Americana, and historic bindings.
On his death in 1899 The Times wrote "It would scarcely be rash to say that Quaritch was the greatest bookseller who ever lived, His ideals were so high, his eye so keen, his transactions were so colossal, his courage so dauntless, the he stands out among men who have dealt in old literature as a Napoleon or Wellington stands out among generals".
His son continued the business, but after his early death in 1913 at the age of 42, his two sisters took on the business with E.H. Dring as the manager. It became a private limited company in 1917 with the eldest daughter and the husband of the second daughter as directors. In 1928, Dring was succeeded by F.S. Ferguson, a bibliographical scholar of worldwide repute, and he in turn was succeeded by E.M. Dring, the first managing director's son in 1960, who remained a senior director until his death in 1990. Quaritch's descendants continued to serve on the board, notably Dr H.G. Quaritch Wales, the founder's grandson and distinguished orientalist (chairman from 1950-1971). In 1972 the family decided to relinquish ownership and then until 2004 it continued under the chairmanship of Milo Cripps, Lord Parmoor. The company is now owned by book collector and investor John Koh.
The current Quaritch team continues in the footsteps of its founder offering a huge variety of books and manuscripts and producing excellent catalogues to this day. The Book Collector wishes them all well and is already looking forward to the 200th anniversary!
View the 175th Anniversary Catalogue >